396 Five Elements Jade Disc

"Yes, long time no see indeed."

Seeing that sweet smile from Qiong Hua, Wang Lu initially wanted to say some pleasantries, which could be considered as a friendly contact between the lead disciple of the two sects, but he saw that her gaze quickly moved away. Wang Lu's heart immediately turned cold, and many words were stuck in his mouth. He just casually said those few words and then kept his silent.

Qiong Hua and Wang Lu also nodded to acknowledge each other. And seeing that he had nothing to say anymore, she cupped her hands across her chest to bid goodbye and then lead her team away from Wang Lu's side step by step.

It was just that, before their team walked a few steps away, from among them, a girl who was filled with heroic spirit suddenly looked back and cast a vicious stare at Wang Lu. Seeing how fierce and swift this glare was, Wang Lu took a careful look at her. The girl was quite pretty, and her anger was quite serious, but some of her features were quite familiar to him.

Wang Lu carefully recalled his memory. Since his debut, the women that he had been acquainted with were not few, but all his conducts were upright, never been a womanizer, never provoked flowers or irritated grass. In fact, even with how intimately affectionate Liu Li and him were, he has never taken advantage of her. Therefore, it was even more impossible for him to harm others. So how could he offend the girl that she cast him a look as if he had sex with her and immediately abandoned her?

However, he soon remembered that he had indeed a bad karma with her. In the ancient sword tomb, she and her brother were steamrolled by him using his IQ that they almost spat out blood. It was highly likely that the psychological scar about that event had deeply rooted. Then, it was no wonder that after they walked away, the girl gave him a vicious stare.

"Little Sister Wangyue, long time no see."

Wang Lu's buoyant greeting sound sent chills all over Wangyue Luanyu's spine. The resentment in her eyes slightly disappeared, replaced by a bit of trauma-induced alarm and fear—psychological scar was indeed psychological scar.

"W-Who is long time no see with you!"

Wang Lu cheerfully said, "How could you easily forget me? Didn't we get along well when we were in the ancient sword tomb…"

Before he could continue, Wangyue Luanyu's face was already bright red. "Shut up! Don't think that your records in clearing the immortal dream lands are extraordinary. You are not qualified to be so presumptuous in front of my Shengjing Sect. Let me tell you, after this chain, you will…"

"Luanyu, shut up."

Qiong Hua's voice lightly passed over from the front of the team, which sent yet another round of deep chills all over Wangyue Luanyu's body that immediately froze her on the spot and abruptly pulled back the words that were almost impulsively blurted out by her. Even her cheeks were covered with a layer of frost.

However, seeing this response from Qiong Hua only aroused Wang Lu's curiosity. Obviously, the plan of Shengjing Sect has already been widely spread. From Wangyue Luanyu's manner of speaking, apparently, if they managed to smoothly clear this chain, they would be capable to push Spirit Sword down a peg, but the exact mystery of this chain was still unknown. Previously, he had asked the elders about these thirty-six chains but did not get an accurate answer. It seemed that everything was just a deduction from the Sect Leader. The Sect Leader Feng Yin deducted that these thirty-six chains were very significant, which was already determined the moment the first chain was cleared. However, what made it significant in the first place was still very much unclear. 

However, now it seemed like Shengjing Sect obviously knew more than Spirit Sword Sect. Therefore, when Wangyue Luanyu said those words, Wang Lu actually paid close attention to that. Unfortunately, when Wangyue Luanyu has just opened her mouth, she was immediately stopped. Other team members of Shengjing Sect team kept their silent, no one dared to be slightly disobedient to Qiong Hua.

Seeing this situation, although Wang Lu was a bit curious of what Wangyue Luanyu was about to say, it was quite difficult to ask further, so it felt like there was an itch in his heart that was difficult to scratch. After he stayed standing on site for a moment and thought about the events that he was about to do, he had to first suppress his curiosity and then continue to walk towards the entrance of the group of immortal tombs.

However, before he could even take two steps, he suddenly heard someone calling his name from behind. Upon turning his head, he saw a beautiful girl's face. However, this time, Wang Lu immediately remembered who that face belonged to.

"Oh, it's Senior Sister Zhou, did you also come to explore the group of immortal tombs?"

The one who came was exactly the frank young girl Zhou Mumu, the lead disciple of Kunlun Sect that previously fought side by side with Wang Lu in the ancient sword tomb in Southern Heaven Region. Therefore, Wang Lu had a quite good impression of her, and thus, seeing her, his face immediately revealed a smile.

"Of course, right now, all of the top rank sects in the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals have regarded this as the core part of their future. So the lead and elite disciples of the sects have been busy non-stop. I previously wondered why I didn't see you in the past one year, but later I heard that in this past one month, you managed to clear more than a dozen chains, which exceeded our effort in a year; that is seriously one hell of a feat."

Wang Lu cupped his hands across his chest to modestly express his reply. But before he could say a few more words, Zhou Mumu impatiently said her goodbye. Apparently, she also has important things to do and could only exchange a few words of pleasantries with Wang Lu.

However, just before leaving, she left some words that left Wang Lu greatly astonished.

"Hahaha, this time, with you here, all the lead disciples of the Five Uniques are in attendance! This is a rare opportunity, let's compete on who will clear the chain the quickest! This time, I'm not going to lose to you!"

Then, with a string of silvery laughter, Zhou Mumu disappeared into the entrance of the group of immortal tombs, leaving Wang Lu stunned speechless on the spot.

All of the lead disciples of the Five Uniques were here? Was this just a sheer coincidence, or… there was a pair of invisible hands that manipulated everything? Previously, he only heard Shengjing Sect, Royal Soldier Sect, and Spirit Sword Sect that were exploring the thirty-six chains. Could it be that Kunlun Sect and Ten Thousand Arts Sect didn't want to be left out?

Mm, this was also normal. The Five Uniques of the Union of Ten Thousand Immortals were all super sects. Although the strongest one was Shengjing Sect and the weakest one was Spirit Sword Sect, but overall, they were all on the same level. Therefore, it was also very possible for the Kunlun Sect and Ten Thousand Arts Sect to catch up from behind.

However, regardless of that, it was of no significance to him. The immortal dream lands in this group of immortal tombs were all independent of each other, thus, even if they happened to gather here together, they could not obstruct each other's progress. Therefore, Wang Lu just needed to clear the storyline as quickly as possible, and just leave the rest for the elders.

—

Upon entering the group of immortal tombs, Wang Lu once again saw the familiar vast galaxy. After one month of clearing more than a dozen chains, Wang Lu had developed an aesthetic fatigue towards the scene in front of him. However, thinking that he would soon face unprecedentedly complex difficulties, Wang Lu immediately cheered himself up. Then, he used the fragments from the last chain that he cleared as a guide to open the next chain.

The endless galaxy was shattered and twisted into a huge whirlpool which sucked him in. This process has been experienced by Wang Lu more than a dozen times, so this was nothing new to him. However, this time, Wang Lu clearly felt that, on the other side of the whirlpool was a huge network whose many of the content were connected together.

Sensing this, Wang Lu's heart could not help but turn cold because previously, looking at the map, there was a hazy blur on this chain that did not allow him to clearly see it. However, this time, when he was deep inside it, Wang Lu felt that there were a lot of hidden mysteries, far different than the previous more than a dozen chains.

And before he could think too much of this, his vision of this immortal dream land ended and this major plot was finally opened to him.

However, when Wang Lu was ready to greet this new world, he found out that there was only darkness.

"Tsk, unprecedentedly difficult indeed, from the beginning, it has already become different."

In all of his past more than a dozen immortal dream lands, the scene happened so quickly that people almost have no response time. But now, there was darkness, meaning that some things were brewing.

A moment later, a bit of light lit up the darkness. Wang Lu went towards the light and found a piece of jade disc that gave off a faint light.

Wang Lu could not help but muse: could it be that this is a good luck jade disc?

However, very soon, five rays of light emerged out of that disc. And Wang Lu found that these five rays of light were the pure force of the five elements. At the same time, an insight suddenly flashed through his brain. This jade disc was not a treasure granted for him, but rather a display option where he needed to choose one of the five elements first before he could continue to explore the plot.

And because of this insight, Wang Lu became even more surprised, because this immortal dream land had actually made a direct hint. Previously, Wang Lu had never received any hint from the immortal dream land. After entering the immortal dream land, what exactly the cultivators had to do and how to do it were all decided by the participants.

For example, in the Peach Garden Village story, instead of saving the villagers, Wang Lu could have joined the demons and monsters of Black Wind Mountain to wantonly rape and ravage the women of the village. The only problem was that, this action would not lead to the clearance of the story, and that decision also contained unpredictable risks. In fact, in the past one year of the exploration of the group of immortal tombs, there were plenty of people who were unclear of their mission goal in the immortal dream lands and had to ultimately come back with nothing. And the biggest reason why Wang Lu was able to clear more than a dozen chains in just one month, compared to one year of hard work from the other same-level elite disciples, was that each time he could accurately determine the mission goal, and this was also not without relationship with the map in his hand.

But now, for the first time, the immortal dream land gave off a clear guidance. This undoubtedly meant that either the story in this chain was extremely complex that without the hint no one could clear it, or the story was extremely simple and the focus was not on the plot at all.

Before the jade disc, Wang Lu pondered for a moment, "I need to choose one of the five elements? Of course it's gold."

The five elements have generating and overcoming interaction between each other, which basically made none of them have relative superiority over the others1, but since gold was in the option, why would he want to choose earth?

However, before Wang Lu's hand could reach the golden light, the golden light on that jade plate was suddenly extinguished! Wang Lu was suddenly startled. He then repeatedly poked that spot in the jade plate, with no response.

"Um… the gold can't be chosen in this five elements?"

With a hint of helplessness, Wang Lu reached out for the fire light. However, just like the previous, before he could touch it, its light went out.

"Tsk, gold is forbidden, and fire can't be chosen, fine, I'll choose wood… huh? Can't even choose wood either? Do I have to choose water? I'm a big man, why would I want to play with water… Damn it! Even water is forbidden? Doesn't this mean I can only choose earth?"

One after another, the five elements rays of light on the jade disc were extinguished, until finally, a brown glow shone alone.

"Are you kidding me… at the beginning, it said to let me choose for myself, but in the end, it simply has no choice at all! Ah well, country bumpkin is earth, new rich is also earth2, fine I'll take it."

With that, Wang Lu put his hand on that jade disc. The next moment, darkness engulfed everything, and when the light shone once again, the scene has already changed.

In the midst of the light, a young woman with a determined look who stood upright in front of him quietly asked, "I ask you, are you my follower?"

"What?"

…because there would always be an element that counters another elementIn Chinese, the words "country bumpkin" = "tu bie" and "new rich" = "tu hao" both have the word "earth/soil" = "tu" in it